!44: New Blade Andis: January 2012

!±8± The Evolution of Blow Dryers

If you go to Amazon.com and search blow dryers under the category Beauty or Health and Personal Care, you will be surprised to find that there are about 500 different kinds of dryers available for keen consumers to choose from. It varies from brand, price, types, and categories. It's surprising how much attention manufacturers and hair experts have given to this bathroom and hair salon tool.

It could be because women and unexpectedly, men, for the last centuries, have gone dependent to this powerful beauty weapon. We already know the advantages and disadvantages of using blow dryers from the countless blog entries that we've read online. However, don't you think it could also be equally interesting to know the origin of this tool and discover how much it has evolved this whole time?

The history of blow dryers stretches even before the 19th century. Before blow dryers were created, people used their vacuum cleaners to dry their hair. Until in 1890, a French hair stylist named Alexander Godefroy conceptualized and used the first hair dryer in his salon. This is very much the same as the ones we see in beauty salons nowadays, the big, bulky, dome-like blower mounted above a beauty chair.

It was not until the early 20s that handheld home hair dryers became available to the public. The idea is to combine the technology of electric heaters and a compact electric motor in vacuum cleaners. We have the Hamilton Beach Co. and the US Racine Universal Motor Company to thank for this brilliant development.

Early handheld dryers seem like a small, round spaceship with two stands. The main part of the spaceship contains the motor of the dryer. While one stand is the handle, the other is apparently the fan. They were commonly made out of nickel-plated steel which makes them a little weighty. On the average, most dryers then weighed about 2 pounds.

As compared to modern dryers which could use up to 2300 watts, ancient dryers only used 100! Imagine the amount of time our ancestors had to consume drying their hair up, atop the serious amount of weight they had to endure holding up the dryer. Besides, they even experienced electrocution and overheating at a frequent rate.

In effect, the manufacturers became inclined to improving the wattage of blow dryers and not so much the electrical motors. They also wanted to develop the exterior casing and materials of these tools. Perhaps the most pertinent change done with hair dryers is when they taught of using molded urea plastics, the one in Bakelite that's used in telephone casings.

Another equally significant change was made by GEC in 1954, which is to place the motor inside the casing. This ended the era of big protruding electric motor and the spaceship-looking blowers. This time, the new design looked like guns. You have almost the same parts. The grip/stock is the blow dryer's handle, the action (where you can find the revolver) contains the motor, and then you have the barrel and muzzle at the end. The muzzle in pistols is the nozzle in blow dryers. While the muzzle sends out bullets, the nozzle blows hot air.

As for the cases of electrocutions, in the 70s, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) in US set up guidelines for hair dryer manufacturers to follow so they can have the green for production. Twenty years later, another imposition was made by CPSC. This time, they wanted manufacturers to employ a "ground fault circuit interrupter" in their products so electrocution will be prevented in case the user used the hair dryer with wet hands.

Despite the huge change from that first blow dryer used in a salon in France to the modern, lightweight, and handheld ones we have today, manufacturers aren't near ceasing from discovering more ways of improving our favorite and most useful styling tool. In the near future, blow dryers will surely blow you away with their potential modifications.